It is not a wise person who takes on a good lawyer. In fact, it is not a very wise person who takes a verbal slugfest to a seasoned courtroom juggler, commonly called senior counsel for there can be only one outcome. Listening to the Senators and Members of the Eleventh Parliament trade a messy tirade and threats to bring the other down came out like a schoolyard altercation.
However, with the battery of long-serving, seasoned lawyers on the Senate side, it looked like they would win this one hands down. But that was not to be by a long shot because they are hopelessly outnumbered and out-shouted.
This one fight that has just started and could become like the ones in the US, pitting the Senate and the House of Representatives or the House of Lords versus the House of Commons in the UK, or even the Japanese and South Korean ones that famously end up in flying kicks and fisticuffs that would make Mike Tyson proud.
It turns out that sometime in 2010, MPs conspired to water down the powers of the soon-to-be Upper House, ratified their handiwork and promptly retired to Kenya Institute of Administration.
Today’s altercation would be laughable if it were not impinging on policy. It means Bills will not be passed when they are supposed to and a somewhat hung Parliament would hold voters to ransom as quality of legislation would be compromised.
This is no longer a matter just about the ego trips of the respective Houses. It is the beginning of the sabotage of Government Business and would no doubt “slow puncture” the Jubilee Manifesto rollout. Simply put, the legislators are giving Kenyans a raw deal.
In the words of Louis Dembitz Brandeis: “Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”
And to quote American orator and politician Patrick Henry, who led the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s: “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government — lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”
Sadly, Kenyan MPs and Senators are no longer serving the public interest, but have a chokehold on the lives of 40 million-plus Kenyans’ hopes and aspirations. It is inexcusable that they get together every week at Parliament Buildings to fight for their own self-interest.
The unbridled bigotry, venomous hatred, grandstanding, slander, bi-partisanship, appears only geared to getting their voices heard above the rest. In the 2010 plot to whittle down the powers of the Senate appear to be ghosts of sittings past come to cast a pall over their deliberations today. Those MPs then, thought they were winding down and would abandon the political field for the next lot. But they were wrong for it was just the beginning of a process destined to serve posterity.
Our take is this: The Constitution is a living set of laws binding a people to work, live, think and develop together. The legislators owe it to the masses to put their House(s) in order and get back to their core business of passing quality legislation in the public interest. Much as politicians are a mere conglomeration of vested interests, turf wars were never written into their job description.
